Updated December 3, 2018
There are two separate mechanisms for undergraduate computer science students and computer engineering students to apply credits from their BS degree towards an MS degree in computer science at MSU: the Linked BS/MS program and dual enrollment. In reality, they are essentially the same program with very minor difference. In particular, all Linked BS/MS students automatically also use the dual enrollment mechanism. The dual enrollment option can be used by any student with any GPA whereas the Linked BS/MS program requires a student to complete their BS program with a 3.5 GPA. Moving forwards, we will not make a distinction between these two mechanisms and will just use the dual enrollment mechanism.
Dual enrollment offers high achieving undergraduate students a chance to complete both a Bachelors degree and a Masters degree in five years. More specifically, up to 9 credits of the required 30 credits for a Masters degree can be waived. In order to waive 9 credits, you must include at least one graduate level course in your Bachelors program plan.
Key element: students must be admitted to the MS program before they take any credits that will be used towards their MS programs. That is, if you plan to use a 4xx course in Fall 2018 that will count towards your MS degree, you must request dual enrollment and be admitted to the MS program before Fall 2018 begins.
Tuition: Tuition: Technically, your tuition may change to graduate level tuition once you have completed 120 credits. In practice, this has not happened right at the moment when you have completed 120 credits. Rather, it has happened after you have completed your BS requirements.
Additional Information:
Power Point slides from October 26, 2018 presentation about graduate school, graduate assistantships, and dual enrollment given by Dr. Eric Torng.
If your request for dual enrollment is granted, you are under no obligation to complete the MS degree. You can complete your BS degree as if you had never requested dual enrollment.
For more information about dual enrollment, see here (scroll down to find appropriate text) and here.